1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a thermographic device for examining the blood circulation of particular organs, such as for example the breast, the thyroid or others.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The state of the art includes thermographic devices which are constituted by a frame for supporting a heat-sensitive plate (that is to say, a plate whose surface is slightly deformable and changes in color in certain points according to the temperature of the surface against which it is rested) and by a photographic camera with color film for taking photographs of the heat-sensitive plate.
The images that can be obtained with currently commercially available devices often have haloes which are difficult to read and interpret, due to the fact that it is not possible to discriminate whether the thermal situation detected by skin contact is due to superficial blood flow or to deep vessel flow.
In addition to this, the heat signal due to deep circulation diverges as it moves away from the vessel and toward the surface of the body: for example at the regions affected by the large deep vessels of the breasts, currently obtainable thermographic images have large haloes with blurred contours and dimensions which are significantly larger than the actual dimensions of the deep vessels.
It has been found experimentally that the less a thermographic examination is disturbed by the thermal situation due to surface blood flow, the more it improves in significance, reliability and unequivocally of interpretation.
In practice, it has been found that if the surface of the organ to be examined, for example the breasts, is cooled appropriately before resting the thermographic plate, the images that form on the plate are first of all less disturbed by the heat due to surface blood flow and secondly, over time, are affected by the heat that gradually arrives from the deep regions: essentially, it is possible to choose, among the images that appear sequentially, those that are most significant and indicative of the thermal and circulatory situation at the various depths of the organ.
An aim of the present invention is to obviate the above cited drawbacks of conventional devices.
An object of the invention is to provide a thermographic device which allows to produce images which are affected to a limited extent by surface blood circulation and allows to obtain a series of images from which it is possible to clearly detect the situation of functional blood circulation at various depths.
A further object of the present invention is to provided a device constituted by components which are easy to manufacture, procure and assemble, be intuitive and safe in use and effective in operation, and to require limited maintenance.